


Rooftops

by CharlieBradbury



Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cap doesn't approve, F/F, Genderswap, Rule 63, Tony and Lucy grew their own pot because they can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:34:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieBradbury/pseuds/CharlieBradbury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark has multiple degrees.  Stella Rogers has knocked Nazis out.  Lucy Banner can take out cities.  Thora has that magic hammer thing.  Claire Barton can outshoot anyone.  Nathaniel Romanov can...well no one wants to know exactly what he's capable of.</p><p>What they'd all like to know is, if they've saved the world multiple times, why do they have to do Biology homework?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rooftops

**Author's Note:**

> That summary makes it sound like a series but it's not, unless people seem interested enough in it or I get an idea for more plot.
> 
> I just like genderbending the Avengers a lot okay?

“Has anyone seen Tony?”

The other Avengers look up from their nearly finished lunches and shake their heads. It isn’t too unusual. Tony has wailed many times about the horrible quality food the cafeteria tries to inflict on her. Stella sighs and stands up. Lucy tracked Tony down yesterday; it was someone else’s turn today.

“She was on the roof yesterday,” Lucy says quietly, tipping her glasses back up her nose. Stella nods her thanks before leaving them to their food. She speeds up the stairwell, feeling no patience whatsoever. Students were not allowed on the roof, and if anyone found Tony up there, she would probably be in detention for a month straight. It was hard enough to get Tony to come to combat drills; if she was avoiding the teachers (and Director Fury who would insist she do her time) it would be nearly impossible to drag her to practice. At the top of the steps, an obnoxiously expensive purse sits against the closed door. Irritation growing, Stella nudges it aside with her foot. Tony probably left her phone in the bag so no one would be able to contact her. Typical.

The sun blinds Stella for a moment when she swings the door open. She smells smoke, and hears a casual, “Hey Rogers!” She walks forward confidently, blinking quickly.

“Tony, you know you aren’t supposed to be up here. Did you even eat-“

“GOD NO WAIT-ROGERS GET THE-“ Tony dashes towards her, making grabby motions with her hands. Stella braces herself for impact, but Tony just rushes past her, clawing at the closed door. “Damn it!” She presses her face into the door, groaning. “Oh-aw fuck!” She runs back to where she’d been leaning against an air duct. “Shit, it’s covered in dirt. You are bad luck, Rogers.”

“What are you-“ Stella finally figures it out as she whips around to try the door handle. It doesn’t budge. “Are…were you locked up here?”

“Yeah, actually,” Tony answers, trying to flick dirt from a cigarette butt. “I just came up here for a quick breather, and I had my bag propping the door open. But then there was a gust of wind and yeah. Stuck.” Tony smiles as she flops back down. She stubs the cigarette out with a grimace. “Fucking waste. After all that work…”

“Work? It was just a cigarette.”

“Au contraire, Captain,” Tony waggles her eyebrows saucily. “That was a breed of cannabis that Banner and I co-created that smells like cigarette smoke but gives you a Hulk-worthy buzz. We’re very proud of it.”

“That was-Lucy helped you-“

“It was her idea; she was tired of Coulson giving her the stink eye. Better to smell like cigarettes than pot at meetings y’know.”

“YOU BROUGHT WEED TO SCHOOL?!” Stella bursts with righteous anger.

Tony gives her an unimpressed glare. “Really? That’s what you’re pissed off about? God, way to surprise a bitch.” Tony rolls her shoulders as she launches into one of her rambling rants. “Look, Rogers, Fury brought us here because Child Services bitched about all these underage truants on a government payroll. I have two degrees-three if you count the Associate’s in Animal Husbandry I got on a dare one summer. I built the Iron Woman suit in a cave when I was fifteen. And the best spy this country’s given birth to wants me-ME-to go back to public high school. I am bored out of my skull here. She wouldn’t even let me bring any of my tech to fiddle on in study hall. I turned a calculator into a GPS out of boredom yesterday.” Tony folds her knees up into herself, staring at the gravel under her. “Let me have my diversions, if you don’t want me to lose my mind, Captain Straightedge.”

Stella is taken aback. She hadn’t really considered how bored Tony could be. Stella was living it up, enjoying the relative ease of this mission-yes, she still labeled being re-enrolled in high school as a mission. It was like a five month vacation. They still got to do drills on the weekends, and they knew they would be excused for emergencies. Claire and Nathaniel seemed to be having fun teaching the gymnastics and wrestling teams some tricks. Lucy had been making friends-with the teachers but still she was coming out of her shell a little bit.

But Stella had not given Tony much thought. She was skipping a few classes, taking to finding places to hide around the building. When she was in class, she was quiet, unless a teacher used outdated information or made an error. Which happened all the time, according to Tony (“For fuck’s sake, this isn’t history. Just call it ‘Straight White Guys and The Rumors About What They Did.’”) Stella watches Tony dig the used joint into the rocks, her lips pouting and her brow furrowed.

“Well Tony,” Stella says, coming to sit beside her. Tony looks up with suspicion in her squinted eyes. “Maybe you could join, I don’t know, the chess team?” Tony snorts with derision. “Anime club?” She barks a short laugh. “Cheerleading? We all know how much you love being loud and scantily clad.” Now she's laughing loud and long.

“Oh man, every Iron Woman fanboy’s wet dream. Me in a cheerleading outfit.” Stella chuckles at her. “It’d probably help ticket sales for the football games. ‘Come see Tony Stark shake her pompoms at you.’ Fury would have an aneurism keeping the press off of that one!”

“See, there’s always a silver lining.”

“You have the best plans; this must be why you’re the leader.”

“I thought you were the leader.”

“Nah, you came in and usurped my position. Mutineer, that’s what you are.” Stella just shrugs helplessly at her. Tony’s laughter dies down gradually, and the two girls are left with the sound of the wind rustling the leaves of nearby trees. “So. I’m going to assume that you-like a good little do-gooder-leave your cell phone at home.”

“You can feel comfortable assuming this, yes.”

“Which means we’re stuck up here until someone comes looking. Anyone know you were heading up here?”

“Lucy said she found you up here yesterday, so she should be smart enough to figure out where I am once class starts and I’m not there.”

Tony scowls and drags a hand through her bangs. “Hm. I didn’t come up here yesterday. I was in the library.”

“Then. Why did she-?” 

Tony scrubs a hand over her face. “She and Nate found me. They did suggest I try the roof next time I wanted to disappear. Told me to prop the door open too, and we all know Nate obsesses over the weather reports. We just got set up, Cap.”

Stella refuses to acknowledge the way her cheeks heat up at the thought that they’re stuck up here until their friends take pity on them and come get them. Being alone with Tony tends to leave Stella struggling with conflicting thoughts. “Um. Why would they do that?”

“Errrffpld,” Tony mumbles into her palms. “Why don’t you just break down the door?”

“I don’t want to ruin a perfectly good door, especially since our location’s known.”

“Try to climb down the front of the building? Or a nearby tree?’

“I’d probably get spotted, and…” Stella glances at the few trees close by, “none of those trees are close or tall enough.”

“This is stupid!” Tony shouts, kicking a foot out and sending gravel flying. “If Fury would just let me bring some of my tech, maybe the Mach III or V, they’re both practically useless, but they could at least get me off this dumb roof.” Stella nods her sympathy. But she feels it’s probably for the best that Tony’s tech-less right now. If she’s as bored as she says she is, she would find a way to make trouble with her suit. “Stupid, stupid, dumb, stupid,” Tony chants as she turns around and starts fiddling with the air duct behind them. “Wish Nate were here, he could shimmy his skinny ass down the vents.” With a sigh, she takes off her earring. It’s gold and dangly, with something that looks like a ruby on the post. Tony pries the jewel out, pulling on the dangly bits. They straighten up and she’s holding a miniature screwdriver.

“You-“ Stella starts, then stops as Tony does the same to the other earring, and now she has a small knife as well. Smirking grimly, Tony gets up and walks to the door. “You’re amazing, you know that?” Her grin loses some of its grimness as Tony sets to work. “Say, why didn’t you use those before I came up?”

“Pfft. Unfortunately, these are single use. Easy enough to make that I don’t really bother making them revert to the earring shape. Plus since Lucy sent me up here, I figured she’d know where to find me eventually.” The tools make clinking sounds as Tony works the knife blade in between the door and the frame. She sets the screwdriver down and pushes forward with the knife. She hears a small click and pulls on the door handle. It opens without a fight.

Stella applauds her loudly as Tony curtsies. “Nicely done, Stark.”

“Thank you, thank you. Though, it worries me that it was that easy. If anyone unfriendly figures out we’re here, well hello here’s an easy entrance.”

Bending down to grab Tony’s bag, Stella says, “Well, I’ll bet anything Fury’s got eyes on this place. Especially since we’re here.” Tony seems to be pacified by this thought, and accepts the purse from Stella. They begin walking down the first flight of stairs, Stella leading. Suddenly Stella stops. “Wait, you never-“ Tony almost walks into her, jerking to a stop on the step above her, the extra height making her only a couple of inches taller than the blond. Stella doesn’t move from where she stands, close enough to smell smoke and perfume on her teammate. “Uh, you never told me why. Why the others sent me up here.”

Tony sighs and looks away from the intense blue eyes in front of her. “It’s nothing, they just know we don’t always get along. They’re trying to get us to y’know, kiss and make up or something.” At Stella’s blush, Tony curses. “Shit-no not-it’s an expression. We don’t have to actually kiss!”

“Oh. Of course.” Tony almost kicks herself for thinking Stella sounded disappointed.

There’s a giggle from above them. “We set you up because Stark was whining about how Captain America doesn’t like her and it’s not fair and we got sick of it.” They both jump at the voice, Tony gripping the screwdriver and knife and Stella falling into a fighting stance. Claire drops from the pipes she’d been clinging to down onto the hand rails. “But obviously Lucy underestimated how much of a pansy-ass you are.”

“Claire Barton you will not be getting any new untested weapons from me. Ever,” Tony growls, shoving a fist into the archer’s muscled shoulder. Claire continues laughing as she falls backwards, twisting and grabbing at rails and ledges as she swings down the stairwell.

“Yeah, sure, you don’t trust anyone else to make sure your tech’s impossible to blow up. We both know that!” Claire’s voice echoes up as she disappears.   
Tony is tempted to throw one of the tools in her hand at the girl, but thinks better of it and pockets them. She doesn’t dare turn to face Cap, embarrassment churning unpleasantly in her gut.

“You think I don’t…like you?” comes the inevitable question.

Tony sighs and shakes her head. “It’s not that. I just…I know I’m-er, we don’t always see eye to eye.”

“Well, no, we don’t.” Stella pauses for a moment. “But you know, that’s not a terrible thing.”

“Captain America disagrees with me? Sounds pretty awful.”

“No not-not as…whatever. I meant. Y’know, me.” There is a note of desperation in Stella’s voice. Tony finds it interesting that even Stella recognizes the duality of her not-really-secret identity and her costumed one. “Remember how Nathaniel and Claire dated?”

“Oh God, why are we talking about that disaster-“

Stella continues quietly. “And that brief stunt you and Lucy pulled?” Tony doesn’t answer, shocked that Cap even picked up on that. They had kept it as quiet as dating the Hulk could be. It hadn’t even lasted a month. “Well relationships, friendships too, they don’t last if the two people involved are too alike. There has to be some differences. To keep things interesting.”

Tony spins around, leaning back on the railing with a shameless smirk on her face. “And if there is one thing you are good at, Cap, it’s keeping things interesting. And punching Nazis but that’s a given.”

Stella shakes her head. “See, if you were to ask me, I’d say I’m pretty boring. But you, on the other hand-“

“I like fun!” Tony says defensively.

“Fun like dropping off the grid mid-mission?” The soft shyness is gone from her voice, replaced by that no-bullshit-Tony-don’t-do-that tone Tony hears shouting at her in the middle of battles. “Or fun like giving Hawkeye untested weapons? Is that a common thing for you guys? Does Coulson know about that?”

The bell (finally) rings and Tony starts running down the stairs. “Whoops, time for fourth block! Where does the time go? Laters Rogers!”

Stella knows she could beat Tony to the door. She doesn’t try. Instead she follows her at a leisurely pace. "Tony Stark was worried that I didn’t like her," she mutters to herself. "Hah."  
 


End file.
